Anti-Ageing’s Magic Bullet

There are lots of anti-aging supplements and exercise regimes out there that can help slow the ageing process. Now course we would all like to turn the clock back to become a  much younger youthful version of ourselves but most of us are happy to get older. What we want is to age gracefully that is to not lose function or suffer pain from chronic issues.

A lot of anti-aging supplements focus very much on our physical appearance like reducing the beauty aspects of of the aging process such as looking at reducing wrinkles and hydrating the skin. Things that to my mind as a clinician  aren’t as important as what’s going on on the inside the body. When we look at anti-aging more scientifically we look at, by definition, how to the slow down the actual aging process. Now we know that the actual aging process itself is about inflammation and oxidative stress and how our body’s tissues are being slowly damaged by that these processes. So when you’re looking at something that’s going to be effective in a significant way on our cells to counteract the effects of aging you want to have a supplement that has specific antioxidant properties. That is an antioxidant¹ that’s actually going to get to where the damaging inflammation and oxidative stress is occurring.

This is one of the most exciting characteristics of molecular hydrogen. Because it’s so small it is extremely unique since it has the capability to act at the cellular level. Hydrogen is qualified to cross the blood brain barrier, to enter the mitochondria, and even has the ability to trans-locate to the nucleus under certain conditions. Once in these ideal locations of the cell, studies have shown that hydrogen exerts antioxidant, anti-apoptotic, anti-inflammatory, and cyto-protective properties that are beneficial to the cell. Hydrogen is most commonly applied as a gas, water, saline, and can be applied in a variety of other mediums. There are also no side effects involving hydrogen, thus making hydrogen a perfect medical gas candidate for the convention of novel therapeutic strategies against cardiovascular, cerebrovascular, cancer, metabolic, and respiratory diseases and disorders.²  Not to mention chronic degenerative diseases like Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s diseases.

It is particularly exciting to read some of the research which looks at specific aging issues related to the brain such as Alzheimer’s⁴  and Parkinson’s⁵  where due to the inflammatory and oxidative stress, destruction of our nerves occurs through a neuro-degeneration. When patients with Parkinson’s were treated with molecular hydrogen they actually had a reduction in the markers for inflammation within their brain and a lot of their Parkinson’s symptoms such as mobility and the actual function of their muscles improved.

The number of people with Alzheimer’s doubles every 5 years after the age 65. In Sweden half of the functionally dependence elderly people aged 75 years or older can attribute it to dementia (25%) or Alzheimer’s Disease (75%). So you can see any advances in this area not only increase the quality of life for a significant number of people but potentially saves society a substantial amount of money.